THE 


LUSITANIA  MURDERS 


AND 


The  Responsibilities  of  Presidents 


A  third  letter  to  Hiram  Freeborn,  U.  S.  A. 


May  10th,  1915 


5th  Thousand 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2014 


https://archive.org/details/lusitaniamurdersOOdavi 


"T'is  man's  perdition  to  be  safe 
When  for  the  truth  he  ought  to  die". 


60  Wall  Street,  N.  Y.  C, 
May  10th,  1915. 

Hiram  Freeborn,  Esq., 

U.  S.  A. 

Dear  Hiram: — 

Events  have  crowded  upon  us  since  I  wrote  you  on 
April  14th  concerning  the  Kronprinz  Wilhelm  and 
Bernstorff's  Diplomacy. 

The  situation  has  grown  more  and  more  complex  for 
us  because  of  the  Administration's  original  error — its 
departure  from  "neutrality":  in  the  attempt  to  be 
friendly :  the  attempt  to  be  ' '  impartial. ' '  The  real  trouble 
is  not  with  these  feeble  "attempts."  These  "attempts" 
are  not  real  attempts.  They  are — if  one  would  be  char- 
itable— but  the  evasions  of  responsibility  of  an  ill- 
equipped,  an  unprepared,  an  uncertain,  a  hesitating  and 
an  inexperienced  administration.  The  seed  of  error  was 
sown  in  Mexico.  It  blossomed  in  the  early  stages  of  the 
German  war.  It  bears  its  fruit  in  the  Falaba,  the 
Gulflight  and  the  Lusitania  murders.  My  letter 
of  March  31st  entitled  "Neutrality"  said  "The 
"life  of  no  individual  American  citizen,  has  been 
"worth  defense,  the  property  of  no  individual 
"American  citizen,  has  been  worth  protection,  the 
"rights  of  no  American  citizen,  as  also  the  rights  of 
"America,  as  well  in  the  present  clash  between  foreign 
"powers  as  in  internecine  strife  in  Mexico  have  neither 
"been  asserted  rightly  nor  maintained  stoutly." 
*  *  *  *  *  "  Such  course,  persisted  in,  will  cost  ■ 
"more  in  money,  more  in  lives,  more  in  territory  and 
"more  in  all  material  resources  within  the  next  twenty 
"years  than  will  have  been  saved  and  this  by  an  hundred 
"thousand  times  over."  Also:  "We  have  given  Ger- 
"many  since  the  first  of  last  August  example  after  ex- 
"  ample  of  the  amount  of  infringement  upon  our  national 


2 


"and  individual  rights  to  which  we  are  prepared  to  sub- 
"mit  rather  than  by  any  possibility  take  a  stand  which 
"would  earn  her  displeasure  and  then  maintain  such 
"stand."  In  summarizing  it  said:  "The  net  result  is 
"that  the  just  rights  of  our  own  people  and  of  all  other 
"neutral  nations  are  deliberately  sacrificed  in  the  inis- 
"  taken  hope  of  accomplishing  what  is  wrongly  thought 
"  to  be  a  good  end.  All  human  experience  is  against  the 
"utility  of  such  procedure."  All  this  is  steadily  coming- 
true  even  earlier  than  I  had  thought— the  question  is: 
how  long  can  we  continue  to  believe  that  it  is  mere  in- 
efficiency. 

That  letter  asked  "Where  has  there  been  recogni- 
tion of  the  duty  to  safeguard  even  our  own  future 
' '  position. ' '  Again  one  asks — where  1 

My  second  letter  to  you,  the  one  of  April  14th, 
said  that  "It  would  appear  to  be  useless  to  temporize 
"further  with  or  seek  in  anywise  to  evade  the  actual 
"responsibility  in  this  matter  cast  upon  us  as  neutrals. 
"The  real  situation  must  necessarily  be  faced  at  some 
"time  sooner  or  later.  All  steps  taken  with  a  view  to 
"temporizing  will  only  embarrass  later.  Will  also 
' '  be  cited  as  precedent  against  us  when  the  next  incident 
"occurs,  and  will  create  a  belief  that  we  will  yield  to 
"pressure  which  belief  will  in  turn  lead  to  attempted 
"pressure,  which  if,  finally,  resisted  will  create  a  still 
"deeper  animosity.  It  is  better  to  face  a  difficult  posi- 
tion or  an  evil  at  the  outset  along  correct  lines  than  to 
"evade  or  hope  to  conciliate  by  weakness."  That 
letter  also  called  attention  to  the  fact  that  step  by 
step  the  justice  of  the  analysis  in  the  first  letter  of  the 
futility  of  our  attitude  was  demonstrating  itself,  that  the 
impairment  of  the  future  reputation  of  our  chief  execu- 
tive was  growing  patent  to  every  observer  and  it  com- 
mented on  the  duty  which  lay  upon  us  to  make  known 
as  far  as  we  could  that  the  errors  we  had  made  were 
recognized  as  such  by  the  majority  of  Americans. 

How  then  does  the  record  stand  to-day?  We  have  to 
contemplate:  amid  a  number  of  minor  matters:  certain 


3 


startling  incidents  which  tower  in  their  sinister  import- 
ance above  their  surroundings — the  murders  which  took 
place  at  the  sinkings  of  the  three  vessels  mentioned  and 
the  proclamations  issued  here  in  the  United  States  to  the 
People  of  the  United  States  by  a  foreign  Power  against 
the  Peace  and  Dignity  of  the  United  States. 

In  each  case  there  has  been  temporizing  by  the  ad- 
ministration. Had  Thrasher's  death  on  the  Falaba  been 
dealt  with  resolutely  there  might  well  have  been  no 
murders  on  the  Gulflight,  had  the  murders  on  the  Gulf- 
light  been  dealt  with  resolutely  the  horror  of  the  Lusi- 
tania  might  very  well  never  have  existed.  There  is  now 
a  great  moral  responsibility  on  the  administration  it  is  a 
safe  prediction  that  the  demands  of  that  responsibil- 
ity will  not  be  complied  with,  and  the  blood  of  other  vic- 
tims will  also  in  turn  cry  aloud  for  justice,  unheeded.  The 
public  journals  state  that  the  President  of  the  United 
States  desires  to  have  from  Berlin  a  report  by  the  Captain 
of  the  German  submarine  that  sank  the  "Lusitania." 
Meanwhile  the  President  plays  golf! 

"The  life  of  no  individual  American  citizen  has  been 
"worth  defence,  the  property  of  no  individual  American 
"citizen  has  been  worth  protection,  the  rights  of  no 
"American  citizen  as  also  the  t  ights  of  America,  *  *  * 
"have  neither  been  asserted  rightly  nor  maintained 
"stoutly." 

Neither  will  they  be,  because  of  the  fatal  lack  of 
initiative,  the  fatal  lack  of  experience,  the  fatal  lack  of 
competency,  the  fatal  lack  of  strength  of  mind  or  purpose 
on  the  part  of  the  administration — to  place  a  most 
charitable  construction  on  the  situation. 

Should  this  come  to  be  the  case  inevitably  the  question 
will  arise — How  great  a  disregard  for  the  lives  and  prop- 
erty of  individual  citizens  will  constitute  on  the  part  of 
the  executive  one  of  those  High  Misdemeanors  which  are 
within  the  purview  of  the  fourth  section  of  the  second 
article  of  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States. 

To  leave  aside  for  a  moment  the  murders  in  Mexico, 


4 


the  murders  along  the  Ainerico-Mexican  border,  the  al- 
leged encouragement  of  one  of  the  insurgent  parties  in 
.Mexico  against  the  other,  the  murder  of  Thrasher  on  the 
Falaba,  the  murders  on  the  Uulfiight  and  the  wholesale 
murdering  on  the  Lusitania:  it  is  noteworthy  that  here 
within  the  United  States  of  America  acts  have  been  com- 
mitted by  one  of  the  belligerents  which  are  acts  against 
the  Peace  and  Dignity  of  the  People  of  the  United  States 
of  America  and  of  which  either  no  note  has  been  taken 
by  the  administration  or  else  whatever  was  done  was  so 
ineffectually  done  that  the  acts  have  been  repeated. 

On  the  morning  on  which  the  ill-omened  Lusitania 
sailed  from  the  Port  of  New  York  there  appeared  ex- 
tensively in  the  newspapers  of  the  United  States  a  procla- 
mation signed  "Imperial  German  Embassy"  addressed  to 
the  People  of  the  United  States  warning  them  not  to 
travel  upon  English  vessels.  This  warning  was  in  direct 
conflict  with  the  position  which  the  United  States  had 
taken  in  its  communication  with  Germany  upon  the  War 
Zone  Decree. 

It  was  perhaps  the  first  time  in  the  history  of  the 
United  States  that  the  Government  of  the  United  States 
w  as  notified  that  it  was  regarded  with  such  contempt  by 
a  foreign  nation,  that  that  foreign  nation  permitted  it- 
self to  issue  within  the  United  States  a  proclamation  to 
the  People  of  the  United  States.  It  was  followed  by  the 
murdering  of  upwards  of  a  thousand  of  the  passengers 
of  the  Lusitania  including  a  number  of  Americans.  On 
the  8th  of  May,  the  morning  after  the  news  of  the  mur- 
dering of  the  Lusitania's  passengers  reached  the  United 
States,  the  same  proclamation  was  made  again  by  the 
Imperial  German  Embassy  to  the  People  of  the  United 
States  in  the  public  prints. 

These  proclamations  were  also,  as  said  above,  directly 
contrary  to  the  attitude  which  this  country  has  taken  on 
this  matter  as  theretofore  declared  most  explicitly  to 
Germany. 

Failure  to  lake  action  to  defend  the  Peace  and  Dignity 
of  the  People  of  the  United  States  in  such  matter  one  must 


5 


assume  would  constitute  a  "Misdemeanor  in  Office"  on 
the  part  of  an  executive. 

Furthermore  it  must  be  noted  that  since  Germany 
practices  the  torpedoing  without  warning  of  passenger 
vessels  of  nations  with  whom  she  is  at  war  it  is  beyond 
contradiction  that  she  takes  the  position  that  such  acts 
are  "permissible  acts  of  war."  She  regards  them  as 
acts  which  tend  to  create  terror  among  her  enemies,  as 
also  among  neutrals,  thereby  impairing  intercourse  with 
her  enemies:  and  as  being  also  acts  which  will  tend  to 
hamper  and  impede  the  ordinary  conduct  of  their  affairs 
by  her  enemies — therefore  as  acts  which  militate  against 
and  reduce  or  tend  to  reduce  the  resources  of  her  enemies. 
That  is  to  say — Since  a  part  of  the  prosperity  of  her  ene- 
mies depends  upon  their  intercommunication  with  other 
peoples  Germany  estimates  that  any  act  which  will  pre- 
vent, diminish  or  discourage  such  intercommunication  is 
within  her,  Germany's,  definition  of  "acts  of  war."  From 
this  it  follows  that  the  act  of  the  German  Embassy  in 
publishing  here  in  the  United  States  simultaneously  with 
the  sailing  of  the  "Lusitania"  a  warning  to  American 
citizens  not  to  travel  on  English  vessels  and  then  repub- 
lishing the  same  warning  immediately  on  the  torpedoing 
of  the  Lusitania  was  "an  act  of  war"  (more  Germanico) 
and  equally  it  follows  that  the  territory  of  the  United 
States  was  "used  as  the  base"  for  that  act  of  war. 

For  us  to  permit  our  territory  to  be  used  as  a  base 
for  acts  of  war  is  an  un-neutral  act  on  our  part. 

Failure  on  the  part  of  the  chief  executive  to  take 
measures  sufficient  to  prevent  such  acts  of  war  being 
perpetrated  with  the  use  of  the  territory  of  the  United 
States  as  their  base  will  tend  to  directly  embroil  this 
country  with  other  nations  and  will  involve  this  country 
in  further  responsibilities. 

This  being  so,  unless  the  reasoning  given  above  is 
defective  at  some  point,  such  failure  to  act  would  consti- 
tute a  High  Misdemeanor  within  the  purview  of  the 
fourth  section  of  the  second  article  of  the  United  States 
Constitution  providing  for  removal  of  the  executive. 


6 


Meanwhile  Germany's  special  representative  in  this 
country,  Dr.  Dernburg,  is  quoted  in  terms  to-day  in  the 
press  as  saying 

"Germany  issued  a  general  warning  advertise- 
"ment  before  the  Lusitania  sailed,"  continued 
Dr.  Dernberg,  "and  had  it  purposely  placed  next 
"the  Cunard  advertisements." 

Dr.  Dernburg  was  advised  it  seems  before  the  Lusitania 
sailed  that  she  was  to  be  torpedoed  and  sunk. 

The  interview  then  continues  still  in  quotations  as 
*  follows  :• — 

"If  after  such  warning  and  publication  of  the 
"fact  that  a  ship  contained  contraband,  as  I  have 
"suggested,  people  still  want  to  travel  in  her,  it 
"is  their  own  affair.  Nobody  can  prevent  their 
"committing  suicide  if  they  wish." 

Dr.  Dernburg  knew  it  seems  that  no  attempt  to  save  the 
passengers  would  be  made. 

How  long  will  the  administration  continue  to  allow 
this  country  to  be  used  as  base  of  war  by  belligerents — 
assuming  that  the  sinking  of  the  Lusitania  with  her  pass- 
engers was  an  act  of  war? 

If  it  were  not  an  act  of  war  then  it  was  murder  and  if 
that  were  to  be  the  hypothesis  it  seems  that  Dr.  Dernberg 
states  sufficient  to  raise  a  presumption  that  he  was  an 
accessory  before  the  fact. 

It  is  therefore  the  less  serious  position  as  to  him  to 
assume  that  he  has  participated  in  using  the  United  States 
as  a  base  of  war.  How  long  will  the  administration  con- 
tinue to  afford  belligerants  free  opportunity  to  use  this 
country  as  a  base  of  war? 

Yours  Respectfully, 

Chas.  Stewart  Davison. 


